Conquering the Wild West of solar

The Ontario government’s feed-in tariff program and related initiatives have produced a groundswell of new development in commercial rooftop solar power generation, involving not only cutting-edge photovoltaic technologies and implementation techniques, but also novel co-ordinations of diverse stakeholders, including developers, installers, building owners, aggregators, investors and government.

For many development-based businesses, at least some facets of such projects remain frontier territory, with best practices either still being established “on the ground”, or simply not yet broadly propagated.

If you are one of these businesses, you may find yourself a little lost in the many facets of solar. Some of these facets include:

System architecture

Connecting to the grid

Various components

Installation equipment and techniques

Standards and safety

Rooftop integrity

Agreements

Liability and insurance

Loans and investment

Often, it’s difficult to cross-pollinate best practices of each of these elements in order to improve understanding of critical issues and solutions within the industry. If you are a solar developer, installer, integrator or aggregator looking to conquer this Wild West of solar, you’ll be interested in our event, Rooftop Solar: Best practices for project developers, taking place Thursday, March 24.

For an introduction to some of the topics to be discussed by our presenters, the following reports may be helpful: